About the book: 2019 / Boris Slutsky (1919-1986), one of the greatest poets of the war generation, lived a significant and tragic life. Significant, as it seems today - it is no coincidence that he said about himself: “I am telling a story.” A native of Donetsk Slavyansk, who spent his childhood and youth in Kharkov, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow he graduated from two universities. He supplemented his education with the harsh experience of the front, going through the entire war - from the Moscow region to Austria. Wounds and concussions, post-war illnesses and homelessness... - retired Guard Major Slutsky faced many trials. The woman of his fate, her illness and death, became both happiness and sorrow. The poet’s fearless poems were not published for a long time; they passed from hand to hand in lists; the first collection “Memory” was published in 1957. The predecessor of the loud sixties, recognized by them as a master, Slutsky raised many students. The collapse of ideals, loneliness and madness brought him to his grave before his time. Ilya Falikov, author of biographies of Evg. Yevtushenko, B. Ryzhey, M. Tsvetaeva (“ZhZL”), he wrote a book about Slutsky for many years, and now, on the eve of the poet’s 100th birthday, it came together. Intentionally or unwittingly, Slutsky’s lines - “Small lifelong troubles / To gain fame and money / Do not belong to life experience” - became the leitmotif of the book and sound like the poet’s testament.